


Four for Sleep

by Krystalicekitsu



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_30snapshots, Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-28
Updated: 2011-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 19:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/pseuds/Krystalicekitsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hasn't had a solid night's sleep since Jess. And Dean's deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four for Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> For [challenge](http://krystalicekitsu.livejournal.com/126604.html#cutid1)\- ' _5\. Writer's Choice_ '. I chose ' _nightmare_ '.

Sam stares at the bed. God, he shouldn't be this afraid to simply _sleep_. But he can't. Just sleep, that is.

He hasn't had a solid night's sleep since Jess. Maybe before then, but definitely not since. And then Dad.

And Dean's deal.

And those six months.

No, Sam hasn't been able to 'just sleep' in a very long time.

But he needs to, has to. Dean's hide is worth more than his freaking 'delicate' constitution.

The chair creaks accusingly under him as he shifts forwards. He wants to _sleep_. Wants the sweet four hours oblivion he used to get as a teenager, the four hours where he didn't have to wonder if he'd wake up to Dean's (or worse, Dad's) tear-stained face telling him Dad (or worse, Dean) wasn't coming back. Four hours of not being constantly aware of every noise from every corner and hiding spot in the motel room (or apartment, or whatever house they were squatting in).

Maybe four hours where he could dream of what Mom had (maybe) looked like. The way she sounded and smelled and how he'd get stuck in between her and Dean (or Dad) with Dad (or Dean) laughing in a kitchen chair.

Maybe four hours of a life that had never heard the word _striga_ or _wendigo_. Where his high school graduation wasn't a hurried affair, catching glimpses of Dad's face in the crowd arguing with someone in a scruffy baseball cap and Dean's happy smile pinched tight at the edges.

He leans back, the chair groaning, before standing and going to the bed.

It looks so soft (deceptive, they never _feel_ as soft as they look) and welcoming. Sam wants those four hour's oblivion so bad it hurts, steady aching pressure behind his eyes and creeping down his neck to gnaw at his shoulders, roaring to life every time his movements go faster than a lazy turn, pressure cloying. His eyes haven't yet started to blur with movement, but he knows it's just a matter of time before it happens. Before after-streaks and the subtle darkening around his peripheral vision that steals his focus and makes him a liability.

Because he's done this before.

Many, many times before.

He folds his shirt after he strips it off. Down the middle, sleeves in and then one, two- into thirds. Place it on the chair.

Four long months without Dean. Dreaming of Dean. Of Dean ripping, cutting into him, pulling him apart, telling him it was his fault, _Sammy's_ fault that Dean was doing this, that they were both here. (He doesn't think on the _dreams_. The other ones. The ones where _he's_ cutting into Dean, ripping him apart, reveling in the warm, slippery and wet feeling of viscera squeezed between his fingers.)

He peels off his jeans methodically, boots already settled between chair legs. Jeans in half, then again folded- one two- into thirds. They're settled atop the shirt.

He stares down at his socks. He wants to take them off, to feel cool sheets against his skin. Can't decide why not. They get removed with the same precise movements as his shirt and jeans then balled up and stuck inside his left boot.

He stares at socks jammed down, shoving the tongue down and screwing up the laces.

He doesn't want to go to sleep. Can he just wake up now?

But Dean needs him rested, needs him slept and alert and aware. Needs him focused and sharp. Sam needs to not watch his brother die again.

He pulls back the covers, turns down the bed. Glances at the bathroom and decided that brushing his teeth a second time would just be running (and he's trying not to do that anymore, trying to be the one who doesn't do that) and he's already taken a piss.

There's nothing more for him to do. But fall asleep.

He slides between the covers (cool and crisp against his bare skin, just like he thought) and settles down.

So tired, so exhausted, he doesn't have any problems finally succumbing to sleep.

 _Screams rend the air, high and tortured._

 _Panicked and feral shouts, noises no human voice should be capable of making. Low, exhausted and defeated moans, broken by sobs of soul-wrenching despair._

 _Thick, choking smell of blood and-_

 _Bright, not-light scorching, screaming through him. Evaporating every bit of him, shredding his consciousness but incidental only._

 _Pain. Painpainpainpainpain-_

 _So much._

 _Agony._

 _Stripping him of everything, anything, who he is (was?) rending, tearing, shredding, destroying._

 _Too close, to close._

 _Can't get away, don't know how, can't move can't try can't-_

 _Laser point attention focused with a rage honed and sharp with intent._

 _Pain so bad he wants to die, soil himself, beg, choking on his own blood, make it stop make it stop make it stop._

 _**you did this! you!** _

_Not words. Intent._

 _Feeling._

 _To muchtomuchtomuch-_

 _Scream-_

Sam jerks awake on a gasp, rearing up and scanning the room, hands clenched in the sheets now tangled and wrapped around his waist and ankles. Bunched around his knees.

The air is refreshingly cool against his overheated face and Sam sits and breathes for a moment. Takes a good, hard look at the motel room around him, the way the shadows bunch and fall in the corners of the room and across the table. Drape over the chair and the corner of his bed like thick, rich velvet.

The clock marks an hour's passage. Sam sighs shakily.


End file.
